Weekly Fish Report

PISCES FISHING REPORT

November 26 to December 2nd, 2009

Overall Catch Success Rate 95%

BILLFISH: This last week was the most exciting of the year for Pisces with two incredible catches that will probably take up the whole fish report, so here goes with copy of what was posted on our blog: On Saturday, November 28th, I received a phone call from our dockmaster, Mario, around 8.00 am to tell me that our 54 ft Bertram "Get Over It" was hooked up to a very weird fish and they asked "what should we do". I immediately got on the phone with the captain Jobe Villavicencio to see what was going on. Jobe was very excited saying they were hooked up to a sailfish that was completely white. Incredulous I got on the internet and found that a couple of "albino" sailfish had been caught before, one aboard a commercial boat in Manzanillo, Mexico and another in Guatemala. The captain wanted to know if he should boat the fish or release it. This put us in a bit of a dilemma; knowing how rare this fish was, we knew that it would be very valuable to local scientists, however we had paying clients on board and the decision had to be theirs, when you charter a boat from Pisces you get to call the shots, it is  your boat for the day. The angler, Matt Dye from Alexandria, Virginia, decided to release this, his first every sailfish and a weird one at that and we were happy with his decision. This group also released a striped marlin and boated a couple of dorado. Captain Jobe told me that they were fishing 14 miles off of the Old Lighthouse on the Pacific when they saw the fish jumping they quickly cast a live caballito to it, which it immediately took. He said the way the fish took the bait was very odd. It didn't run or jump, he could not express very well what he meant but said it was just strange. It took them 15 minutes to bring to the boat on 20 lb test and weighed approximately 110 lbs. From what I read these fish are white due to a lake of melanin, but cannot be considered truly albino unless they have pink eyes.  Due to the excitement the pictures taken were not the best and there is quite a bit of shadow on the fish making it look darker. I asked the captain about the eyes and he said they were really beautiful, pink with a brown tinge, which is not appreciated in the photographs.  Jobe always seems to be in the news, but then again he is a great captain. Both he and brother Cubi (Javier) the mate were named World Offshore Champions, competing against 30 countries, in the IGFA World Offshore Championship held here in Cabo just a few weeks ago. The other really BIG news was that of a BIG fish as follows, again taken from our blog: Nobody expected a fish of this size to show up at the dock yesterday, the Captain didn't even tell us until he had it on board and we thought perhaps there was some exaggeration going on, but then again Julio Gonzalez aboard the 32 foot Cabo "Bill Collector" is one of the best captains at Pisces. They were trolling about one mile from Golden Gate, when they saw the something feeding in the distance, about half a mile from where they were. At first they thought it was a whale or a very big porpoise, so they raced over to see what it was. They realized as they got close that it was a marlin and that it was eating a 20 lb dorado.  The deckhand started to prepare one of the dorado that they had caught earlier in the day, to use as bait, as they thought with a fish this size, they needed something big to attract its attention.  They got as close as six feet while the deckhand was still preparing the bait, but they had lures in the water, they started to circle the fish, going around while they were still preparing the bait. They continued circling the fish; she was oblivious to the boat concentrating on the tasty dorado that she was eating. Captain Julio suddenly dropped the speed of the boat to 6 knots and one of the lures was very close to the fish, they saw when she opened her mouth, the widest they had ever seen and took the lure it was like everything was happening in slow motion.  It was Martha Chisholm's turn in the chair, she is from Singer Island, Florida, despite being in her later season in life, she is very strong and an avid fisherwoman. The fish jumped twice and then started to go down. The tackle was a Shimano Tiagra 80 reel with 100 lb line, 300 lb leader and the lure a 5.5 Zuker, they types used for striped marlin, green, with a white underside. The fish had finished her meal and thought that this lure was another dorado. They started to work the fish, though it wasn't that active. They put as much pressure on the fish as they dared but one hour into the fight, the saw that line was going out very slowly, just with the current, and they were down to half the reel; Captain Julio realized the fish was dead and between all of them, taking turns on the reel they pumped the fish to the surface. It was not tail-wrapped and they assumed that it had died of a heart attack. This was such a shame as the angler and crew had planned on releasing it.  They had to remove the fighting chair to get it into the boat and after 30 minutes of struggling, it was   wave that helped them out working in their favor to push it into the boat. Back at the dock it took a dozen guys to hoist the fish up, but even then, they couldn't clear the bill off of the floor as the fish was so long, to truly let it hang free and get the accurate weight. Nevertheless the fish showed as 865 lbs according to the dock scale, which is not that accurate. In other fishing news forty six percent of our charters caught billfish this week with the Pacific still being the location of choice ; as we write this boats are stacked up off of the Old Lighthouse and it seems as if striped marlin are moving into the area and the preferred bait of mackerel starts to show up. We did have a big moon this week which can be a factor in less billfish being caught, nevertheless there were several boats that had triple marlin days and Dan Ryan from New York and friends, were able to release four in one day aboard "Rebecca". Pisces anglers caught a total of 46 billfish this week consisting of 41 striped marlin, two sailfish and three blue marlin, all released except the huge fish that died.

OTHER SPECIES: Dorado remains the number one catch in Cabo with eighty three percent of our boats catching between one and twenty five in a day. Weights are from 15 to 30 lbs and they are spread out from the Old Lighthouse, some very close to shore, to Golden Gate and can also be picked up on the Cortez side. Tuna catches were on the slow side with just the "Bill Collector" loading up on these for Mark Chiavetta from San Jose, California on November 29^th, when they headed out 36 miles in the direction of the 210 spot and managed to get fourteen between 25 and 30 lbs, as well as on dorado and release two striped marlin. Again fair amounts of wahoo near Migriño up to 40 lbs. Roosterfish to 30 lbs inshore as well as a few skipjacks and sierra.

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Partly overcast, now clear, seas calm.

BEST LOCATION: Gaspareño, Elias Calles, Migriño, Los Arcos, Golden Gate.

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 77 F

BEST LURES: Live bait, green colored lures.

Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg